A multifunction peripheral, having plural functions, such as copy, facsimile, scan, and print functions, can realize a cooperative job processing system capable of processing a paper document based on copy and facsimile functions and also processing electronic document data on a personal computer.
More specifically, the multifunction peripheral can scan a paper document and transfer the scanned document data to a personal computer. The multifunction peripheral can receive a facsimile document and directly transmit received image data to a personal computer. Furthermore, it is desired to cooperate and automate succeeding procedures and processing based on electronic data of paper documents or facsimile documents.
Therefore, a conventional technique prepares cooperation templates describing desired settings with respect to various items of a multifunction peripheral, and enables a user to designate a desirable cooperation template and, if necessary, enables the user to change the setting values.
For example, a conventional image forming apparatus can store plural types of output setting data (i.e., cooperation templates) to form an output image according to an output format of selected output setting data (refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H10-083263).
Furthermore, the above-described image forming apparatus can not only perform settings of its own functions but also perform settings of other scanners or printers connected via a network, as well as settings of cooperative processing of an image forming system (refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-287861).
However, according to the system disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-287861, it is impossible or substantially restricted to include unique functions applied to a specific image forming apparatus (e.g., “high-compression PDF” function in a printer) in a cooperation template commonly usable among plural image forming apparatuses having different functions.
Accordingly, even if a cooperation template is commonly usable, the cooperation template cannot include highly advanced functions of individual image forming apparatuses.
Moreover, creating a cooperation template using unique functions of each apparatus encounters with the following problems. For example, a cooperation template cannot be commonly used among different machine types if a device has a plurality of machine types. Additionally, it is required to prepare many templates differentiated for individual machine types, although the contents of respective templates are similar to each other.